Monday, December 31, 2012

As each year winds down, I look back over the journal that I have kept to
remind myself of the myriad things that have occurred during the year, many of
which I’d never expected andmost of
which I’ve already begun to forget. One of the most surprising things that
turned up in 2012 was a letter written from my brother Steve to Mom in August of 1967, just
a few months before his death.Though we
now know what Steve did not about his future – something that imbues the letter
with an even richer meaning – I think it
is a really appropriate letter for reflection on a day given to thoughts about
renewal and new beginnings.On a more
personal level, I think it gives Steve a chance to let him tell those in our
family who never really knew him a little something about himself in his own
words.I wonder how many 19 year-olds
today in comparable situations would show the same kind of independence, work
ethic and character that this letter hints at.
(I’ve kept all the original spelling.)

August 25, 1967

Mom,

Just thought I would write a couple of
lines to let you know what I have been doing.Right now George and I are in San Fransico, it was so hot at the river
that we decided to come up here and see what was going on.Both of use are okay but we have had a little
trouble with the car, we think that it has a burnt valve but we are really not
sure.We went to a garage the other day
and they said that it would cost between 65.00 and 80.00 dollars to have it
fixed.Neither of use have any money and
we are going to work up here until we can get up enough money to get the car
fixed and return home.I got a job
yesterday working at a place called World Carpets Inc, but it is only for three
days.George is still looking for a job
but hasn’t had much luck.After this job
is finished we are going to go to this place and get a job picking
peaches.We figure we will have enough
money to get the car fixed by Thursday or Friday so we will probably be
returning home late Friday nite or early Saturday morning.I am really looking forward to getting home,
because it is frezzing up here and we have been sleeping in the car and it’s
pretty cramped and I’m starving.Well at
least I think that I have learned one thing out of this trip, and that is that
I don’t want to go on being a bum the rest of my life, after seeing all the bums
and panhandlers down here it really makes you stop and think. I sure would hate
to think of me being like that in 10 years or so.So I have decided when I get back home I am
going to get a job and save money, then go back to school the second semester,
because I doubt if I could get in this semester I think it’s too late.When I get back in school I am really going
to try.This may sound like a lot of
hogwash to you, but I really mean it this time.This place has really made me see how important it is to get an
education and make something of yourself.Well enough that subject for a while.

Well like I said I will probable be home
Friday or Saturday depending on how soon we get the car fixed. How is
everything down there OK.I hope. Well I
have to get going now I am at work on my lunch hour and I have to get
back.I just wanted to let you know I am
ok.Say hi to Pat & Mary and
everybody down there and I will see you on Saturday (I hope).

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Christmas is the time of year when we all seem to dig back
into memories to recall our traditions and the experiences we shared with our
families when we were younger.This year
has added to it the knowledge that it has now been one year since Mom died. Looking back, I am glad that two Christmases
ago we were able to put together a small book of memories ofthe times we had growing up in Mom's house to
give her as a Christmas gift.

My memories of childhood are not always the clearest so a
few days ago, I sat sat down and wrote a stream of consciousness, “I Remember”
list.It is a technique that writing
teachers have traditionally used to get ideas for writing, but I just used it
to try to help bring some of my memories back to consciousness.There is no particular organization to it.
When I was done, I looked at it and thought that perhaps other family members
might be interested in seeing it because it might trigger some of their own
memories, so I’m posting it and inviting anyone who has things to add to it or
post a list of their own. (See below the list for how to.)

I
remember the time we were driving our '49 DeSoto to San
Diego from Santa Ana
and it died, so the whole family had to hitchhike.

I remember Grandpa Wilkins' coin collection.

I remember piling in back of the rambler station wagon and
singing at the top of our voices.

I remember trying to deliver newspapers in by bicycle in the
hot Santa Ana winds.

I remember seeing a fire from the playground of Willard
Jr. High school
and running down the street to see it, only to find out it was our house.

I remember Mom clicking her teeth at all of the
grandchildren.

I remember Mary answering the door at Grandma’s and calling
out, “there’s a woman at the door and she’s really fat!”

I remember how Dad liked mincemeat pie.

I remember how we used to dry our clothes by hanging them
out on a clothes line.

I remember that the bulbs we used on the Christmas tree were
much bigger than the ones today and that the tinsel was real tinsel, not
plastic.

I remember that we had to ask permission to take anything
out of the refrigerator.

I remember that peppermint was my favorite flavor of ice
cream.

Of course, I remember Mom fastening Ed to the clothes line by
his suspenders.

I remember the whole family watching Bonanza, the Ed
Sullivan show, Disneyland or Lawrence Welk on Sunday
nights.

I remember how we would all kneel down to say the rosary
each night during lent.

I remember going to watch Pat’s little league games

I remember the Christmas when Steve and I got our first
bikes.

I remember having cow’s tongue for dinner.

I remember when the Mass was still in Latin and we would
sing Adeste Fidelis in the original words.

I remember that two years in a row, a box with food for
Thanksgiving dinner was dropped off at our house.

I remember that Grandpa Wilkins would ring the necks of the
chickens he raised.

I remember family pinochle games at holidays.

I remember ping pong matches on the backyard patio.

I remember walking past a pet store on my first day of
kindergarten.

I remember the smell of the campfire at the camp for at risk
youth during the summer after eighth grade.

I remember spam and Ovaltine.

I remember Mom making syrup for hotcakes out of mapeline.

I remember lying in bed earlier Christmas morning in the
dark unable to get back to sleep.

I remember the first time our family went out to a
restaurant together and eating Chinese food.

I remember that mom always called pizza “pizza pie” and
pronounced Italian with a long I.

I remember Mom’s stories of getting her tongue frozen stuck
on a gate.

I remember climbing the apricot tree at Grandma’s.

I remember how Dad used to give us all haircuts and one time
he let Mom try to cut his hair.

I remember planting the redbud tree in our front yard when
it had arrived in the mail as a twig.

I remember boils, pinworms and impetigo.

I remember lining up in school to get vaccinations.

I remember grandma’s ringer washer.

I remember fried chicken and mashed potatoes on Sundays –
Mom’s was the best.

I remember Mom always wore clip on earrings.

I remember the silk jackets Dad brought Steve and I back
from Korea.

I remember that Dave always had the best penmanship in the
family.

I remember sitting in front of the television watching the
test patterns and waiting for shows to come on for the day.

I remember taking accordion lessons and wanting to be able
to play “Lady of Spain”

I remember on Christmas that we could only open one gift
before attending Mass.

I remember the year I learned there was no Santa Claus and had
to keep the secret from Steve.

I remember how much I loved Mom’s pineapple-upside down
cake.

I remember Dad saying the only two foods he didn’t like were
parsnips and tomatoes, and that squirrel tasted greasy.

I remember that we always shared bedrooms.

I remember Mom always said Dave “was like a long drink of
water.”

I remember that when we lived with grandma, on weekends we
would put the names of the chores to be done in a jar and each draw out our
jobs for the day.

I remember that when we brought report cards home, Mom
always looked at the conduct marks and effort first.She said the most important thing to her were
that we were good people.

As for posting to Northen News, Maya made the serendipitous
discovery a week or so ago that if you already have an account with Blogger and
I have sent you an invitation, Northen News will automatically pop up as one of
the blogs that you can add to, so you can write a new one at any time.If I didn’t send you an invitation, but you
want to post on Blogger, let me know and I’ll send you one.All, I’ll need is your email. Of course, you
can always just leave a comment.

In Springfield,
Wisconsin there is a Catholic church called
St. Martin’s that is both a part of our family history
and one of those small pieces in the puzzle of American history as well.Johann Adam Sitzmann, my great-great
grandfather, was a stone mason who had recently arrived in the United
States from Germany
when the building of St. Martin’s began to be built in
1850.According to local history, it was only in 1841 that the first
white settlers had come permanently to this area.Most of the land still belonged to Native
Americans, and that included the land that he thought he had a deed to, as he
later found out.

In history context is
everything.Sitzmann was working on St.
Martin’s prior to the Civil War.It interests me that the church he was helping to build was a Roman
Catholic church at a time when there was still a deep prejudice in this country
against Catholicism.No doubt, our
tobacco-farming Northen ancestors would have driven them out of town, had they
shown up in rural Virginia.St. Martin’s went on
to have a school.While today we simply
assume every child’s right to public education, in the mid-1800’s education was
still basically a private affair.Those
parents who had money might send their children, but even then, Catholics were
often not allowed, so no doubt St. Martin’s school
played an important role in the community.

Because of the dubious claim to his
property, Johann Adam Sitzman ended up moving on to western Iowa
becoming part of the mass mid-century expansion westward.St. Martin’s, of
course, remained behind.In one of my
imaginary drives across the country to visit all those places that played a
part in our family becoming what it is today, Springfield
is definitely one of my stops.It is
amazing that today, though expanded and updated, the original church of 160
years ago is still standing.It was
built of stone and meant to last. I’m intrigued with the idea that if somehow
Sitzmann left his own fingerprints, his own mark on it.I
doubt many buildings we put up today will be standing 160 years from now, when
our descendents look back at us.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Trout Unlimited already has
a program in place called Trout in the Classroom. The program is a new
one. It is done all one the country and is quite successful. That
program allows children in a classroom to raise trout from eggs and watch them
develop. They then learn about the habitat, food sources and anatomy of
trout and after they are grown release the trout into a local river. It is a
good program and well established, the only down side of it is, it all done
using trout raised in a hatchery, not wild trout and their is a
significant difference if you were ever to go fish for trout. The
difference can be compared to if you were to go hunting for Elk or for cows.

The program we are doing is a pilot program and is focused
on many of the same things. We have a classroom take a field trip to the
river and then we will catch fish by either electroshocking the water, which
stuns the fish momentarily and allows us to net a few or flies with barbless
hooks and catch the fish. They go into a live well and then have a
transmitter placed in them by a professional trained to do this.
The kids release the trout back into the water and then will use a
computer program to track the habits of the Trout. While on the river the
Kids will also have the opportunity about healthy trout habitat and some of the
insects [entomology] which Trout use for food. During the year volunteers
will go into the classroom and be a guest teacher on any number of subjects
related to wild trout and their habitats, plus do something fun like have
the kids tie a fly, cast fly rod, learn a knot used in fishing, etc.
They will also discuss the movement of the trout and it reinforces the
need for healthy habitat and ecosystems as the children see how the fish move
and where they live as the water levels change in the course of the year.

Yesterday, unfortunately we had to cancel the field trip and
have rescheduled for Oct 30th. The rain was pouring down and we had winds
up to 45 mph. We had a lot of trees come down in the land trust near our
house and our friends had a tree fall and crush their fence and intruding the
yard of the people who live behind them. So today am going to go with a
chain saw and help him cut up the tree and repair the fence, the tree is
probably 40 - 50 feet tall. Then this afternoon at 4:30 we will go with our Trout Unlimited Chapter and
rescue some more of the trout who get trapped in the canals, they shut of
another canal yesterday. I suspect that we will get another 4,000 -
5,000 wild trout.

(Ed is the president of the Hemingway chapter of Trout Unlimited. You can see his newsletter at http://hemingwaytu.org/)

Thursday, October 18, 2012

I’m cutting the last of the ham off
the bone, laying aside slices that I’ll wrap up and freeze for sandwiches or
scalloped potatoes, but I know what I’m going to do with the bone.I‘ve left some of the fat and gristle on it
and a few bits of meat in hard-to-get-to places where the bone curves it. It is
going for Navy beans.There are some
things you can’t let go of despite flow of time and fashion and, for me, one is
my mother’s admonition never to waste anything.

Growing up, Fridays were tuna
casserole or oyster stew, Sunday (if we were lucky) could be fried chicken with
mashed potatoes and Tuesday might be meatloaf, but somewhere in the week there
was sure to be Navy beans.When I’m done
cleaning up the cutting board, I’ll get out a large pot and dump the beans in
to soak them overnight.I could take the
easy way out and use canned beans but it makes a lot more this way and I like
to have the leftovers. I’ll add plenty of salt and pepper and a bay leaf, as my
mother did.One thing I won’t do like my
mother is to add onions.As an adult, I
use onions regularly in all kinds of cooking, but as a child, they were one of
the few things that completely destroyed the taste of a meal for me.

Of course, I ate them anyway.One of the rules of our family was that you
never left anything on your plate.If
you didn’t want seconds, fine - with seven children around the table there was
always someone willing to eat what you didn’t like - but you didn’t waste.We’d say our prayer before meals and Mom
would dish us all out a big bowl ofNavy
beans, usually with cornbread.The syrup
that we poured on the cornbread was made with something called Maplene that I
think disappeared with the sixties. She’d heat up sugar on the stove with some
water in it and then pour in the Maplene until it thickened enough to become a
thin syrup.

After dinner, whoever’s turn it was
to do the dishes would always clear up the table. Two of us each night, one to
wash and one to dry.I always preferred
washing.If Mom were helping with
cleaning up in the kitchen, we’d sing together as we washed. Whether she was
cooking or cleaning, my mother always sang as she worked. She sang in the car
with all us packed in the back of a Rambler station wagon before all of the
seatbelt laws.Before seatbelts.

A little over a year ago when my
mother could no longer walk or dress herself without help and was living in a
group home,my brother Ed flew out from
Idaho, my sister Judi from Tennessee, and me from New Jersey to celebrate her
ninetieth birthday with her. One afternoon, we took her to Red Lobster - my
mother’s idea of a five star restaurant - and she ordered a huge meal.As she finished the last bite, my brother Ed
laughed and said, “And she’s going to eat every last one of those depression
era beans.”

I’m humming to myself as I fill the
sink with water and wash off the cutting board and knives.My mother died two days after
Christmas.Despite her best efforts, my
faith has gone the way of fish on Friday, scapulas and stations of the
cross.But I don’t need a heaven to
justify her life.I have the memories of
childhood.I have the feeling of the
song that rises from the warm dishwater.I have the Navy beans. That is enough.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Like almost everyone else in the U.S. who has a family member that originally came from England, we can trace our family back to English royalty.Maya
and I were looking at all of this yesterday and thought it was fun, so just
thought I would post it.I just copied
this from ancestry.com so it is really in reverse but just goes forward from
Henry IV and comes down to me and, ergo, anyone in the Northen family.

Of course, there could be some broken links in the
chain.Once you get to Henry IV it goes
back through a couple ofother kings
(for example King John of Robin Hood fame andto Eleanor of Aquitaine and beyond.I thought it was fun.

Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Edward Minty is my sixth great grandfather and the father of Abigail
Minty, whose famous quarrels with her husband William Northen were the
subject of a previous blog. (I believe it is also through Minty that the name Edward entered into and became a staple male name in the Northen line.) I recently came across the will of Edward Minty through the courtesy of a distant Northen relative descended from William Northen after his relocation to North Carolina.

I thought Edward Minty's will was interesting on a number of levels. First, of course, it is an historical record linking directly to our family, but I think that the content of the will is extremely interesting. What did people who died thirty years prior to the American revolution value and leave in their wills? The spelling in the document is interesting as well because much of what is in there that appears to be misspelling is not, but was either the way that the word was actually spelled at the time or was a variant of a word whose spelling was still in flux. Finally, it is interesting to note that Edward Minty, who was born in 1690, like most Virginians was probably illiterate inasmuch as his signature is "his mark."

Will of Edward Minty
September 2, 1745

I, Edward Minty of the County of Richmond and Parish of Lunenburgh being very
sick and weak but in perfect mind and memory, having a mind to settle the
affairs of this work knowing that all men is bound once to die, do make this my
last Will and Testament. First bequeathing my soul to all mighty God our
heavenly Father and my worldly goods as follows:
Item: My will and desire is that my wife Margaret Minty her choice of my cows
and calfs.
Item: I give and bequeath to my son-in-law John Purcell his now choice of my
beds and furniture after my wife has chused.
Item: My will is that my son-in-law John Purcell should have his choice of all
my sows that is with pig.
Item: I give and bequeath to my wife Margaret Minty her choice of ewes and
three lambs.
Item: I give and bequeath to my wife Margaret Minty my old mair and saddle and
furniture and bridle.
Item: I give and bequeath to my wife Margaret Minty my land during her naturall
life and after her cecease to be equally divided in quantity and quality
between my two daughters, Abigail Northen and Margaret Purcell.
Item: My will and desire is my horse Joe should be sold to the highest bidder.
My will is that my two guns and all my coutrements for muster be sold to the highest
bidder.
My will is that my wife Margaret Minty may be my executrix and William Northen
and John Purcell Junior to be my executors with her.

Teste: Edward II Minty {his mark II}
John Landman
Tobias Purcell {his mark T}
At a Court held for Richmond County
the second day of September 1745.
John Landsman and Tobias Purcell being first sworn in Court severally and
jointly depose that there were present when Edward Minty deceased made his last
will and that after he had finished and the will was signed and sealed up the
said Minty told them he had left out something which was that the rest of his
estate undisposed of should be equally divided between his wife, William
Northen and John Purcell, Junior and that as the time this making his will and
speaking those last words the said Minty was in his perfect sences to the best
of those deponents understanding and further they say not.
Teste: M. Berryville
At a Court held for Richmond County
the second day of September 1745.
This will was proved in open court by the oaths of John Landman and Tobias
Purcell, witnesses to an admitted to record.

Transcribed from a copy of the original record by Nancy Slater Thompson 23 Mar
2002.

Monday, August 13, 2012

When I wrote the 1940’s Census blog onAugust 4, telling what the census revealed
about my mother’s family in that year my it also left me with a couple
questions…mysteries if you will. The biggest one for me concerned my
grandfather’s mother, Catherine (Sitzmann) Wilkins. According to the 1940’s
census, she was living next door to my grandfather by herselfbut was listed as married….but with a line through
the M. Yet I knew that her husband, my great-grandfather Wilkins did not
die until the mid-40’s.Moreover, the
census also revealed that in 1935 she had been living in Long
Beach, California, so clearly,
at that point she was not living next to my mother and grandfather who were
still at the same address.What was
going on?

I decided to try to see if I could locate my great
grandfather Ed Wilkins.I found an
Edward Wilkins listed in Yuba City, California
quite a distance away.His age was
approximately that of my great grandfather but a couple years older.He was listed as a handy man at what appear
to be a campground. Moreover, he was listed as living at the same address as a
housekeeper (I believe her name was Ella Longley) who was two years younger and
originally from Canada.Because both Edward and Wilkins are common
names, the possibility that this was my great grandfather seems pretty slim,
except for two things.He was listed as
having been born in Missouri, the woman listed as a housekeeper was listed as
widowed while Ed was listed as being married, and, most importantly, to the
question of where he was living on April 1, 1935, the answer was Long Beach,
California, the same city that Catherine A. Wilkins was living in.Moreover, his original age had a line through
it, changing it to 77, giving him a 1863 birthday.All of this is circumstantial, but pretty
convincing to me that he was the same man.This does not answer the question, though, of why Ed and Catherine were
separated (if still married) and why Catherine was living next door to my grandfather
and listed as married but head of household. What happened between 1935 and
1940?

Sunday, August 12, 2012

In June of this year, Maya traveled to Las
Vegas to attend a conference that met at Technology and MarketingUniversity.While there she was interviewed by Austin Wright,
the host of Stay Ahead TV and filmed for local television.The interview was great and can be seen at Sabre Travel Network. To see the interview just scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Maya's picture.

Monday, August 06, 2012

One of the things that looking through family censuses and
other historical documents has shown me is just how each generation has
increased in the number of years of schooling they had.Using myself as the referent point, I’ve
taken a look as far back as I have information for on my mother’s side.

Person

Relationship to me

Born

Years of Education

Ed Wilkins

Great grandfather

1867

4

Victor Wilkins

Grandfather

1893

8

Elvera Northen

Mother

1921

3 years HS

Michael Northen

Me

1946

College grad

My children

1970’s

College grad

My grandfather's younger brother, Raymond also had eight
years of schooling so that seems pretty reliable for people born on a farm in
his generation.I could also note that
my dad (James Northen) graduated from high school, but that is a bit deceptive
because of eight children in the family, only he and his sister graduated high
school.Another somewhat misleading stat here is my graduation from college.Although I was fortunate enough to be able to
go to college and graduate, none of my brothers or sisters did.At the time I graduated in 1964, graduating
from high school was a real accomplishment and considered sufficient
education.It was probably about evenly
split between those who went on to college of some kind (junior college in my
case) and those who didn’t.By the time
my children graduated from high school, though, college had become an
expectation.Whose knows what my
grandchildren will face?

Up until 1862 when Lincoln
signed the Land Grant College Act, most colleges were private and it was only
those who had the wealth and leisure to attend college that could go.The Land Grant Act was intended to allow
those like my great-grandfather Ed Wilkins who lived on farms to be able to
better their lot by attending college. Obviously, it took quite a few years for
our family to be able to take advantage of those opportunities.When I began Fullerton
Jr. College in California
in 1964 it was pretty much of a case of paying for your books and a few student fees.The great irony to me is that “what goes
around comes around” and we are now in a situation where once again only the
rich can afford college without having to taking out a loan that mortgages
their future to do it.As I said, who
knows what our grandchildren will face.

Of course, there is a partial solution.Make the first two years of college free the
way high school is. But God forbid that we should have to pay higher taxes so
that our grandchildren and everyone else’s can have a better future.

Saturday, August 04, 2012

For at
least the last six months, ancestry.com has been touting the fact that the
1940’s census is going to be released as public information and little by
little the release of each state’s information has been completed.This is a time period that is of real interest to
me in our family history because Mom’s family had left South Dakota
during the depression and then turn up again in the 1950 at the Van
Ness St. house in Santa Ana
where we eventually came to live. Yesterday I got an email saying that the full
census was available and each state’s information complete.I immediately did a search in the 1940’s
census for my grandfather (i.e. Victor Wilkins, my dad’s father was dead by
then) and actually found it a listening for him.Moreover, a bigger surprise to me was that my
mother was on that census, too.Despite
the relatively few clues censuses give about flesh and blood people, they are
like a mystery to me from which I enjoy reconstructing the narrative of their
lives.Here are some of the things that
I found.

They lived
at 1415 West Fourth St. in Santa
Ana.Other than
her parents, my mom was the oldest person in the family listed at that
address.She was 18.Since she was the third oldest in the family
what that means is that her oldest sister, my aunt Lucille was out of the house
and probably married and that her next oldest sister, Elaine, had already died
of diabetes.My mother is listed as
having finished 3 years of high school, and as working as a housekeeper for a
private family.The census reveals that
from March 26-30 she had worked 48 hours, which confirms the story Mom always
told about having to live at her Uncle Ray’s during the week and bring the
money back home for the family.

Another
interesting fact is that right next door at 1405 a Catherine A. Wilkins is
listed.This has to be my grandfather’s
mother (Katie Sitzmann) since she is listed as 73 years old and having been born in Wisconsin.I never realized that she had actually lived
so close to them, though I vaguely knew she had been in California
at some point. At that point, my grandfather and Mom must have been supporting
her.Unfortunately, for some reason it
does not list my grandfather’s occupation.Catherine Wilkins is the only one listed at her address and is listed as
the head of the family.Where the
marital status is designated, she has an M but the M is crossed through and
something that looks like a lower case l is there instead.Others on the page have a W or D next to
their name to indicate widowed or divorced, but she does not and since Ed
Wilkins (her husband and my great grandfather) was still alive at that point,
I’m curious about what the situation was.

The
1940’s census also helps to narrow down the time that the Wilkins family moved
out to California.The three youngest children in the family
Alice (aka Sister Karen), Shirley and Armond were all listed as born in California
and the next youngest in the family Ardell was born (and is on the 1930’s
census) in South Dakota.Sr. Karen was 8 years old in the 1940’s
census which means that the family must have come out some time around
1931.We have all read about the Great
Depression and how it changed the lives of people in this country and in the
landscape of the country itself, but to see how it affected individuals in your
own family specifically, really makes history come alive. Obviously, I get
quite carried away with these things.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

It is no secret that when it comes to creativity, my kids
have it covered: Melissa in music, Eli in photography and art, and Maya in
writing. These were established well
before the computer became everyone’s everyday addiction. But with the ubiquitous presence of the
Internet, they have all taken on another angle. They’ve all emerged as
bloggers.

While there are any number of blogs out in cyberspace to choose from, I thought at the very least, we could check
out what our own family members have been up to on theirs. To that end, I’m
laying out the basics on three of the blogs closest to my heart. For each one I’m giving name, URL, purpose
and a sample paragraph from one entry. Oldest blog (and coincidentally blogger)
goes first.

Melissa’s description: “These pages are dedicated to
women committing theirs lives and love to family and home. Here, I write
about my quest to seek everyday beauty, alone and with my children. Join
me as I share my love of music, creative arts, food, nature and play. I
hope you will share your inspirations and ideas here as well.”

Sample post:

Lately,
I have had thoughts that I never expected. I have been thinking about
going back to work. Granted, “back” to work doesn’t quite fit me. I
never had a career that took flight. My degree in sociology never led me
to abundant opportunities. In all honesty, I never expected to work
for all that long. I knew that I wanted to have a family. I knew
that I wanted to stay at home with my children. So, these new feelings
have gone against who I thought I was a mother. More accurately, they go
against who I hoped to prove to be as a mother.

Maya's descriptIon: “Lilies and Elephants is a
collection of my thoughts, musings, ideas and stories. I blog for my company,
Chimera Travel, but I like to depart from the business end of things and simply
scribe my personal impressions. I write about life, thoughts, curiosities and
more.

Sample post:

I took a family vacation to Cape Cod
and made a decision to unplug as much as possible. All of my travel this year
has had some business component to it and I wanted to spend time with
the family without the constant urge to check my email and social media outlets
every five minutes. If you don't know me well enough to know how difficult a
challenge this was, let me give you a few examples - I've actually emailed from
a game park in Botswana,
posted on Facebook from the rainforest, and tweeted from Macchu Picchu. Plain
and simple, I like to be connected and my job very often requires it - even at
odd hours of the day and night, since my clients aren't always on the same time
zone.

Eli’s description: “Tips and news from designer and photographer
Elijah Northen, the founder of ENform. This is a companion blog to our full
website: www.ENformdesign.com "

Sample post:

Have you ever noticed that you can rotate a camera 180
degrees? Well, I'm sure you have, but how often have you done it?
Conventional wisdom presents us with two formats: portrait format (90°) and landscape format (0°). Considering the fact that these
are only 2 of the 180 possible angles, that means you're probably only exploring
1.1% of the available options - sounds pretty absurd when put that way,
huh?

As Eli’s description suggests, the blog is a spin off from
his websiteENform which “lies at the intersection of synthetic space and
practical utility. Founded by Elijah
Northen, a registered architect and photographer, we search for questions by
means of artistic exploration and answer them through thoughtful, yet practical
design.”

These are the family blogs that come first to mind, but if you are related to the Northen family in some way and have a blog, let me know in the comments. We'll make sure we give yours equal billing.

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

On June 7,
I wrote about the turbulent marriage of William Northen (my fifth great
grandfather) and Abigail Minty.Shortly after his wife sued him, William
moved down to Edgecombe County, North
Carolina and, apparently, several of his sons moved
with them.One of them who moved with
him was his son William.William Jr.
married a woman named Margaret Dickens in North Carolina
and moveddown to Jones,
Georgia before his
death.William and Margaret had a number
of children, one of whom was named Peter.One of Peter’s sons, William Jonathan Northen was the governor of Georgia
from 1894-1898.If you’re interested in
checking out what Governor William Northen did as governor you can read about him at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2804. Note that he traces his ancestry to the
same original person that we do – John Northen.

Friday, June 22, 2012

On Wednesday of this week, I had the rather strange
sensation of realizing that several years ago I wrote a poem that describes a
painting I saw for the first time only yesterday.

Thanks to a gift of the membership to the Philadelphia
Museum of Art from Eli and Maya, I was able to attend an exhibit yesterday
called “Visions of Arcadia” that centered around the works of Cezanne, Matisse
and Gauguin. The main idea of the
exhibit was to trace elements of pastoralism and the bucolic life as an idyll
or ideal from the Greeks and Romans (especially Virgil’s “Eclogues”) in the
movements of 19th and 20th century French art.

In addition to the big three painters that everyone knows,
however, were a number whose work was unfamiliar to me. One painting that especially struck me was
Robert Delauney’s massive “City of Paris.” http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/robert-delaunay/the-city-of-paris. Like the work of Picasso and Braque, whose paintings
flanked it, it was an experiment in cubism, having a fragmented Eiffel
Tower on the right and a scene of
the bridge and river on the left, but in the middle, in keeping with the theme
of Arcadia, were the Three Graces
from classical painting.

For some reason Delauney’s painting stuck in my head,
perhaps because it was at once still representational enough that my
conservative mind could recognize elements of it but experimental in a way that
even I could follow. Of course, I also
liked the idea of pulling an ancient theme into a contemporary venue. I was driving through Philadelphia, on route
to bringing my grandson Andrew’s birthday gifts out to him with the idea in
mind that Delauney painting was ripe for
some kind of ekphrastic poem when I realized that I’d written a poem years ago
that actually came close to accomplishing what I wanted to do.

The occasion had been Maya’s wedding. Judi had flown in and, one at a time, Dawn,
Amber and Brandi also arrived. I don’t
think that Judi even know that all of them were coming. I had not seen them in a number of years and
their presence in Philadelphia, a city that prides itself on its tough image,
was just such a total “breath of fresh air” that it caused me to rescind my
cynicism for a while. Here are the
first two stanzas. (I’ll spare everyone the saccharine third stanza which I
have never been happy with):

Philadelphia
embraces its hard edges.

From the phallic thrust of skyscrapers

To the corner pretzel sellers caw

To the plosive me-me-me of horns in traffic

To the hip hop slam of words and dance

Disparities pile on like a Raushenberg collage

Or an overstuffed deli sandwich too large to bite.

Into this summer clamor you unfurl

Three summer julian breezes, muses of the south

translating through
guileless grace

the city’s ersatz hardness into tunes

unbound by fevered beats and gattled raps

seeing through unembittered eyes

Homophony in all the newness that you meet.

True, this is about Philly, but it struck me that considered
visually it is virtually a translation of
“City of Paris.” Though I had never really had occasion to
think about it, phrases like “muses of the south” and “guileless grace” clearly
juxtapose my nieces to the fragmented barrage of Philadelphia that they have
stepped into in the same way that Delauney’s Three Graces (which, I believe,
were originally a separate painting in themselves) both intrude upon yet at the same time become part of the
fabric of Paris.

Whether I will actually ever finish the poem, now that I’ve
seen Delauney’s mural is subject to question, but having this kind of a head
start, I don’t know that I have a whole lot of excuses.

Friday, June 15, 2012

In my father’s generation, the qualifications for being a
good father basically consisted of bringing home a paycheck, making sure the
family had a working car, and taking out the trash.Dads today who meet only those requirements
would be lucky to receive a C- rating.For most modern Dads, part of the normal week includes cooking meals,
doing the grocery shopping, getting the laundry done, and sharing equal
responsibility for child care.Going out
with the boys after work means coming home to their sons, not a trip to the
local pub.

I was reading a Father’s Day card in a drugstore today that
said -

Question: Why is Father’s day in June?

Answer: Because a month after Mother’s day, some guy said, "Hey,
wait a minute…”

For men ofmy
generation, this characterization ofthe
status of Father’s Day might have been spot on.Films like “Three Men and a Baby” were probably an accurate portrayal of
the kind of parenting most of us were capable of - but for twenty-first century
Dad’s the bar has really been raised dramatically.They have a lot to live up to.I’m glad to say that the three of them that I know best clear that bar
easily – they would have no problem figuring out how to change a baby.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Eli has had a front row seat to an amazing sight from his office
overlooking the Baltimore Harbor. In celebration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812, huge
sailed ships from countries all over the world have been gliding right past his
window, and, as his photograph above shows,
he can walk right out to the dock and take pictures.

Baltimore is a
natural place for this celebration. It
was one of the country's largest ports in 1812, and Ft.
McHenry was one of the most
memorable battlegrounds of the war. It
was from watching the British firing on Fort
McHenry, of course, that Francis
Scott Key drew his images for writing the Star Spangled banner (which he set to
the tune of an old British drinking song). Aside from that, however, very few Americans
today know much about the War of 1812.
It is the forgotten war. At
least, that is what the show about the war that I saw on PBS last night said,
and it is certainly true of me.

Another thing that the PBS documentary pointed out was that
while the British troops were very disciplined and belonged to the most
powerful country in the world at the time, the United
States relied on a volunteer army of its
citizens, primarily farmers. One of
those involved in the war was a Northen family ancestor named Edward Jones Northen.
He was a captain in the 41st regiment of the Virginia Militia. More than likely he was a captain not through
any training but because his father owned a fair portion of land and was
influential in the town. The records don’t
say anything about skirmishes he was involved in, but we know that he was on
duty in the summer of 1814 along with a servant because he put in a request to
be reimbursed for expenses after the war.
That was about the time, though, that British troops tried to invade Richmond
County where Edward Northen lived
and were turned back at Farnham Church.

Edward appears to have been a more upstanding man than his grandfather
William (see last blog) whose only effort during the Revolutionary War seems to
have been to sell men rum. Edward became
town constable as well as holding other positions, as did his son after him.

Thursday, June 07, 2012

In doing research on the Northen family, most ofthe material thatI run across are lists of names and dates,
but occasionally something colorful comes along that shows what some of our
ancestors were really like.That is the
case with William Northen and his wife Abigail.William was born in 1719. He andAbigail were married in 1738 and lived in Richmond
County, Virginia.In 1775 (one year before the Declaration of
Independence), Abigail sued her husband. What happened?

Apparently William posteda note on the courthouse door saying that he was selling four or five
hundred acres of land long with all of his cattle, household goods and eleven
slaves.Abigail went to court to stop
him.Why would she want to do that?Well, they had seventeen children and he had
not supported them in any material way for the past two years. Abigail claims he had not even given
her linen to make clothes for the kids.

The truth is, William had not been around for some
time.Six years early he had built another
house for himself about a quarter mile away. The reason for the second house
originally was that it was a sort of store for him to sell the brandy that he
made.As marital problems increased he
began staying away more and more at the second house.

For his part, William claims that one night he had to
stay late at his store. When he climbed into bed with Abigail that night she
told him that she was going to cut his throat.Given the predicament he left her in, it was probably lucky that was the
only thing she threatened to cut.He
began sleeping in a different bed but did come home for dinner until according
to William one day she said she was going to poison him, so he set down his
knife and fork and moved out. William claims his old place had become "a Harbour of horse roges and bastards."

It seems as if the court decidedin favor of Abigail, but eventually
Williamdid sign over his property to
one of his sons, Peter (unfortunately, not our direct ancestor) and moved down to Edgecombe County, North Carolina.I guess he couldn’t take the heat.If there's any moral to the story it's probably that, as
much as we may romanticize the past and talk about how great family values were
in “the good old days”, they probably had the same basic problems we have today
and weren’t coping any better.

An interesting note on the Northen name is that some of the
court papers spelled it Northen and some spelled it Northern.What eventually happenedwas that those family members who moved to North
Carolinabegan
spelling it Northern, whereas those in Virginia (up until mid 1800’s at least)
still spelled it Northen.

By the way, William’s son, George, our direct ancestor, was
given a hundred dollars and cut out of his father’s will.He inherited nothing.

Monday, May 28, 2012

There are some occasions when a number of events converge for me,
and this Memorial Day is one of them.It
is the first Memorial Day since my mother’s death; I just returned from
visiting Pearl Harbor; and the United States
is still at war in Afghanistan.

Not only have I had a decided anti-war bias since the
Vietnam War but I am profoundly bored by talk about guns, ships and planes, so
I was unprepared for what I experienced on my recent visit to Pearl Harbor when
I went to see if I could discover where Dad’s ship, the USS Case, was sitting
on December 7, 1941.I’d expected the air to be full of military
pheromones and American flags.What I
found instead was a quiet sense of respect for all who had been involved in the
conflict that day and an attempt to give visitors some sense of what it must
have been like.

Dad really never wanted to talk about the day of the Pearl
Harbor bombing.He would
only say that it was early Sunday morning and no one had expected it.He may have mentioned seeing fires on the
ship and oil burning on the water.An
account from someone who had been on the Case mentions that later when they
passed by the Arizona, they could
see it all in flames.The sheer
magnitude of the attack must have been staggering.Last night on television, there were
interviews of soldiers coming back from Afghanistan, many with post traumatic
stress syndrome, describing not only what being in the war did to them in while
they were in it, but the difficulty they had with returning to anordinary life when they came home to their
families.Most of them were just out of
high school, college age.

I always forget that in 1941, Dad was only 21 years
old.He was no older than those faces I
see on television and wonder how our country in good conscience can send over
men not only to take part in killing first hand, but, if they survive, to live
with that experience the rest of their lives.Dad was that young.Just out of
high school when he enlisted.I have to
make myself remember that he was not even married to Mom at that point. Researching our family history has
helped me to realize just how traumatic it must have been for him coming from a
small backwater town into the war.It
was not that he did not know hardship, since with his family background he
certainly did, but he had never seen violence on anything of that scale.His mind when he married Mom must have been
still fresh with the images of the fires, burning oil, sinking ships that he saw.He brought those into the marriage with him
and they must have been with him again as he sailed out seven days after
marriage to face what, for all he knew, might have been another Pearl
Harbor.I’ll never knew what he went
through, nor would Mom have either, but I wonder, when young, what he told her
about them and if they filled his dreams at night.

I still believe that one of the greatest services anyone
could do for our country would be to expunge military metaphors and idioms of
battle from public debate, but at the same time I have a renewed belief that it
important to try to re-envision what it was that people like my father went
through and to try to appreciate the effect that it had on them and on the
lives of those they loved.Perhaps if we
do, we may eventually come to recognize what the poet Wilfred Owen so vividly
tried to tell us back after World War I, the reality of “The old Lie: Dulce etDecorum est/ Pro patria mori.”

Friday, May 11, 2012

A year ago Mom had just celebrated her 90th
birthday and I don’t think any of us would have really believed that by
Mother’s Day this year, she would not be with usI think that pretty much all that can be
said about mothers and mothers day can pretty much be said but I just wanted to
acknowledge not only Mom, but the two Northen family Grandmothers.To say the least, they all lead hard lives,
but they too were young at one time and as beautiful in their day as many of
the younger Northen women in their twenties and thirties are today.Rather than seeing them as grandmotherly, I
think it is rather nice to think of them as young women who had many hopes and
dreams themselves.

This is a picture of Laverna S. Wilkins – aka Grandma
Wilkins – at 18.I never knew what S.
stands for, so I’m glad if anyone wants to fill me in.We all know about her having to raise eleven
kids and work at Kerr Glass company later in life, to boot.As for being young, Grandma always looked old
to me from the time I was little, but she was like a portrait, as the years
changed and everyone grew older, she never seemed to.When she came to visit me in Buffalo
in the 1970’s her hair was as black as it was when I was a child.

I never met my Grandma Northen, Mattie Lewis.Unlike Mom and Grandma Wilkins who made it to
90, she only lived to be 45.There are
few stories about her, though we all have heard the one about her drowning in
the riverIn this picture, though she is
in her wedding gown.At 22 she was three
years older than her husband, and as was common in her day, married in her
father’s home.

As I look at these pictures, I wonder what they must have
been thinking, what they thought their lives were going to be like, and what
secrets they kept themselves that we will never about.